Carnot efficiency

magnetohydrodynamic devices

...that the interaction of a plasma with a magnetic field could occur at much higher temperatures than were possible in a rotating mechanical turbine. The limiting performance from the point of view of efficiency in heat engines was established early in the 19th century by the French engineer Sadi Carnot. The Carnot cycle, which establishes the maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine, is...

second law of thermodynamics

...the environment with waste heat, engines are designed to maximize the conversion of absorbed heat Q1 into useful work and to minimize the waste heat Q2. The Carnot efficiency (η) of an engine is defined as the ratio W/Q1—i.e., the fraction of Q1 that is converted into work. Since...

theories of Carnot

...power in a waterwheel. He worked within the framework of the caloric theory of heat, assuming that heat was a gas that could be neither created nor destroyed. Though the assumption was incorrect and Carnot himself had doubts about it even while he was writing, many of his results were nevertheless true, notably the prediction that the efficiency of an idealized engine depends only on the...